The Shocking Brutality of Freedom Christian School
Or: Kickball, Cruelty, and the Last Days of Unreformed Recess
As Chronicled by Orson Shakespeare McSeinfeld
ORSON SHAKESPEARE McSEINFELD
There was no freedom at Freedom Christian School.
The name was ironic.
Or possibly a threat.
A reminder of what we didn't have.
Like naming a prison "Liberty Correctional."
Or a hospital "Pleasant Death Medical Center."
It was the mid-1990s.
The last gasp of unsupervised schoolyard brutality.
Before anti-bullying campaigns.
Before playground monitors with actual training.
Before anyone gave a damn about whether children were forming healthy social bonds or merely surviving.
And I—
small, imaginative, utterly unsuited for the gladiatorial combat of blacktop kickball—
was in hell.
THE BLACKTOP
The blacktop at Freedom Christian School was not a playground.
It was a coliseum.
A vast expanse of cracked asphalt where the strong thrived and the weak learned important lessons about Darwinism and despair.
There was one game.
Only one game that mattered.
Kickball.
Not just kickball.
Not casual, friendly kickball.
But KICKBALL.
Capital letters.
The kind where rules were enforced with the fervor of religious doctrine.
Where disputes were settled with violence.
Where your social standing was determined entirely by:
How hard you could kick
How fast you could run
How willing you were to peg someone in the face with a rubber ball
I could do none of these things well.
I was small.
Slow.
And fundamentally opposed to the concept of intentionally hurting someone for recreational purposes.
Which made me—in the ecosystem of Freedom Christian School—
prey.
THE KICKBALLERS
They had names.
I won't use them.
But I remember them.
The Enforcer - a kid who was somehow already six feet tall in fourth grade. Wore oversized basketball jerseys. Kicked the ball so hard it once cleared the fence and landed in the church parking lot. The game stopped. We all watched it bounce between cars. Someone whispered "holy crap." The Enforcer just stood there, hands on hips, like a victorious warlord.
The Strategist - smaller, but vicious. Knew every technicality. Would argue for fifteen minutes about whether someone was "safe" or "out." Always won the argument through sheer exhaustion of everyone else's will to live.
The Screamer - exactly what it sounds like. Celebrated every victory by screaming directly into your face. Every loss by screaming at teammates. Just... constant screaming. I think about her sometimes. Wonder if she's okay. If she ever found peace. Or if she's still out there somewhere. Screaming.
And then there was—
The Pack.
The mass of kids who weren't individually remarkable but collectively formed an impenetrable wall of kickball culture.
They spoke in sports references I didn't understand.
They wore Nike.
They knew things about professional athletes.
They were... normal.
And I was not.
THE IMAGINATIVE EXILE
I didn't want to play kickball.
I wanted to play.
Real play.
Imaginative play.
I wanted to be in the woods at the edge of the blacktop—
the thin strip of trees that separated the school from the real world—
where you could pretend to be anything.
An explorer.
A wizard.
A scientist discovering new species.
Anything but... this.
But the woods were off-limits.
"Too dangerous," the teachers said.
Which was hilarious.
Because the blacktop—where children were actively injuring each other—was somehow safer than trees.
So I was stuck.
On the edges.
Watching.
Occasionally being forced to participate when teams were uneven and they needed "one more person."
I was always picked last.
Not because I was bad—though I was—
but because picking me was seen as a penalty.
A punishment for losing the previous game.
"Ugh, fine, we'll take Orson."
Said with the enthusiasm of someone accepting a participation trophy they didn't want.
THE TEACHERS AS JAILKEEPERS
The teachers at Freedom Christian School were not educators.
They were jailkeepers.
Wardens.
Guards stationed at the perimeter to ensure we didn't escape.
They didn't teach so much as... recite.
Recite Bible verses.
Recite Christian commercial rhetoric that sounded like it came from a marketing pamphlet.
"Jesus loves you, but you must also love discipline."
"God has a plan for your life, and that plan includes obedience."
"Freedom in Christ means freedom from sin, not freedom to do whatever you want."
Everything was a trap.
Every concept twisted into compliance.
They'd say "freedom" but mean "submission."
They'd say "love" but mean "fear."
They'd say "grace" but mean "you're one mistake away from punishment."
MRS. HENDERSON
I need to tell you about Mrs. Henderson.
Fifth-grade teacher.
Fifty-something.
Hair sprayed into a helmet.
Wore long denim skirts and turtlenecks even in summer.
She had a way of smiling that felt like a warning.
Like she was about to tell you something "for your own good" that would haunt you for years.
She loved to remind us—
constantly—
that we were "blessed" to be at Freedom Christian School.
"Public school children," she'd say, with a mixture of pity and disgust, "don't have the truth."
As if truth were a commodity.
Something you could only get at a Christian school.
Like a membership to Costco.
She'd tell us stories.
Cautionary tales.
About children who left Freedom Christian for public school.
And how they "fell away."
Got into drugs.
Became secular.
Lost their way.
Died spiritually.
She said this to ten-year-olds.
And we believed her.
Because we didn't know any better.
Because she was the authority.
Because questioning her meant questioning God.
And questioning God?
That was the one thing you didn't do.
THE RHETORIC
The Christian commercial rhetoric was everywhere.
In the textbooks—published by companies with names like "Bob Jones University Press" and "A Beka Book."
In the posters on the walls—cheerful cartoons of children praying with captions like "Start Your Day with Jesus!"
In the daily announcements—reminding us to "walk in the light" and "be good witnesses."
It was branding.
Jesus as a product.
Christianity as a lifestyle brand.
Complete with merchandise—bookmarks, pencils, stickers—all featuring Bible verses in Comic Sans.
And we—
small, impressionable, desperate to belong—
bought it.
Literally and figuratively.
At the book fair, I bought a bookmark that said "Jesus is my Homeboy."
I didn't know what a homeboy was.
But it seemed important.
THE ISOLATION
Here's what they don't tell you about Christian schools:
They're designed to keep you isolated.
From the world.
From "secular influences."
From anyone who might make you question.
We didn't watch regular TV.
We didn't listen to secular music.
We didn't have friends outside the church.
Everything was contained.
Controlled.
A closed loop.
And if you were someone like me—
someone who already felt different—
someone who wanted to play pretend instead of kickball—
someone who asked too many questions—
The isolation was absolute.
THE BULLIES
The bullies at Freedom Christian School were different from public school bullies.
Or so I'm told.
I've never actually been to public school.
But the difference, I think, was this:
Our bullies had God on their side.
They could be cruel—
pushing, shoving, mocking, excluding—
and then turn around and sing "Jesus Loves Me" in chapel.
Without irony.
Without cognitive dissonance.
Because they'd been taught that being a "good Christian" didn't mean being kind.
It meant being right.
And if you were weak?
If you didn't fit?
If you couldn't kick a ball hard enough or run fast enough or perform masculinity correctly?
That was your sin.
Your failure.
Not theirs.
THE BREAKING POINT
There was a day.
I remember it clearly.
Recess.
Kickball.
I was in the outfield.
Where I always was.
As far from the action as possible.
Hoping—praying—that the ball wouldn't come to me.
It came to me.
Of course it did.
A high, arcing kick.
Straight toward me.
I ran.
Positioned myself.
Reached up—
And dropped it.
The ball hit my hands and bounced off.
Like I'd been trying to catch water.
The groans were immediate.
"ORSON!"
"COME ON!"
"WHY ARE YOU EVEN PLAYING?!"
And The Screamer—
bless her tormented soul—
ran across the entire field.
Got in my face.
And screamed.
Just... screamed.
No words.
Just sound.
Pure, distilled rage.
I stood there.
And I thought:
I don't want to be here.
I don't want to be at this school.
I don't want to play this game.
I don't want to be this version of myself.
And something inside me—
something small but vital—
broke.
THE AFTERMATH
I stopped trying.
Just... stopped.
Stopped trying to fit in.
Stopped trying to be good at kickball.
Stopped trying to be the kind of Christian they wanted me to be.
I became invisible.
Walked the perimeter during recess.
Sat in the back during class.
Gave the answers they wanted to hear.
But stopped believing them.
I learned to perform.
To say the right things.
To bow my head during prayer while thinking about anything else.
Star Trek.
Books.
Anywhere but here.
I became a ghost.
Haunting the halls of Freedom Christian School.
Waiting.
Waiting to leave.
THE ESCAPE
I did leave.
Eventually.
Seventh grade.
My parents—God bless them—finally listened when I said I couldn't do it anymore.
We switched to public school.
And it was...
Different.
Not perfect.
Not a utopia.
But different.
There were options.
You didn't have to play kickball if you didn't want to.
You could join drama.
Or art.
Or just... sit in the library.
Teachers didn't tell you that secular music was demonic.
They just... taught.
And I—
for the first time in years—
could breathe.
THE RECKONING
Sometimes I wonder what happened to those kids.
The Kickballers.
The Screamer.
The Enforcer.
I wonder if they remember Freedom Christian School the way I do.
Or if, for them, it was just... childhood.
Normal.
Unremarkable.
I wonder if they ever think about the kid in the outfield.
The one who couldn't catch.
Who didn't fit.
Who eventually disappeared.
Probably not.
I wasn't important enough to remember.
I was just... there.
A background character in their story.
But they are central to mine.
Because Freedom Christian School—
with its kickball brutality and its jailkeeper teachers and its commercial Christian rhetoric—
taught me something important:
Not every place that calls itself "freedom" actually is.
And sometimes the most Christian thing you can do—
is leave.
THE LESSON
I don't blame the kids.
Not really.
They were just... kids.
Doing what kids do.
Forming hierarchies.
Establishing dominance.
Surviving.
But I do blame the system.
The adults who saw what was happening—
the cruelty, the exclusion, the violence of the blacktop—
and called it "character building."
Who saw children suffering and called it "discipline."
Who turned Jesus into a brand and compliance into virtue.
They failed us.
All of us.
The kickballers and the outcasts alike.
And Freedom Christian School—
with its blacktop coliseum and its commercial rhetoric and its complete lack of actual freedom—
remains, for me, a monument to everything that's wrong with American evangelical culture.
A place where belonging required conformity.
Where love required obedience.
Where freedom meant captivity.
And where a small, imaginative kid—
who just wanted to play in the woods and ask too many questions—
learned that sometimes the cruelest prisons—
are the ones that claim to set you free.
End Transmission.
(Orson exits, carrying the weight of kickballs he never caught and prayers he never meant. Behind him, the blacktop remains—cracked, unforgiving, and still hosting games where someone always loses. He does not look back.)